"Never take a damaged marriage overseas," they told me at the spouse orientation the year my husband joined the Diplomatic Security Service. Diplomatic Security, or DSS, is a little-known branch of the State Department that is responsible, as the name suggests, for keeping diplomats and other Americans safe overseas.

Ray McGovern was put on the State Department's Diplomatic Security Be On the Look Out list-- one of a series of proliferating government watch lists. What he did to end up on Diplomatic Security's dangerous persons list and how he got off the list are a tale of our era, Post-Constitutional America.